New York Times: For Republicans, All Roads Lead to the U.S.-Mexican Border

Not long after Hamas terrorists killed and kidnapped hundreds of Israelis this month, a wave of Republicans—on the presidential campaign trail, in state and congressional races, and in the far-right corners of conservative media—reached for a familiar playbook: tying the issue to the nation’s southern border.

Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a government professor at George Mason University who tracked the rise of the Mexican criminal organization Los Zetas, said the latest Republican rhetoric took cues from three distinct moments in U.S. history: the migration of Mexican laborers who became the economic engine of the Southwest, the government’s war on drugs that began in the 1970s, and the 9/11 terror attack and the so-called war on terror. All resulted in an increased military presence at the border, the building of physical barriers, and an expansion of the U.S. deportation system.

Read the full article in the New York Times.